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Supercritical carbon dioxide extraction of lipids and carotenoids from Rhodotorula toruloides CBS 14 in comparison with conventional extraction methods
Get PDFBackgroundOil from oleaginous yeasts has the potential to replace non-sustainable vegetable oil as raw material to produce food, feed, biofuels, or biochemicals. Co-produced compounds like carotenoids may be helpful to obtain economically viable bioprocesses. Identifying appropriate extraction methods is a bottleneck both for establishing oleaginous yeasts as cell factories for both oil and carotenoids production and for analysis of intracellular compounds like lipids and carotenoids. We conducted extractions using supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) and conventional solvent methods to extract and analyze lipids and carotenoids from R. toruloides CBS 14 cells grown on wheat straw hydrolysate. The lipid extracts were analyzed using gas chromatography (GC), and the carotenoids were identified and quantified using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC).ResultsFour main carotenoids in the extracts from both extraction methods were identified including beta-carotene, gamma-carotene, torularhodin, and torulene. Interestingly, torularhodin was the major carotenoid extracted using SC-CO2 extraction, followed by torulene. This was different from the conventional acetone extraction method, where beta-carotene was the main carotenoid. After the conventional extraction, torularhodin and torulene underwent degradation due to the saponification step, which was necessary to remove lipids before UHPLC analysis. The total carotenoid concentration obtained from SC-CO2 extraction was 332.09 +/- 27.32 mu g/g dry weight compared to 19.9 +/- 2.74 mu g/g dry weight in acetone extraction. A small amount of carotenoids was observed to be lost into the lipid extract, but this loss was not as substantial as that seen with acetone extraction. Additionally, the total lipid content in samples extracted using SC-CO2 was significantly lower than that obtained using the conventional Folch method. GC analysis revealed that oleic acid was the major fatty acid in both lipid extracts, followed by palmitic acid and linoleic acid. Notably, the proportion of unsaturated fatty acids was higher in the extracts from the SC-CO2 method compared to the conventional method.ConclusionThese findings indicate that the SC-CO2 extraction method outperformed conventional methods by preserving the integrity of unsaturated lipids and retaining an abundance of carotenoids, resulting in high-quality extracts
Healthy microbiome-moving towards functional interpretation
Get PDFBackground Microbiome-based disease prediction has significant potential as an early, noninvasive marker of multiple health conditions linked to dysbiosis of the human gut microbiota, thanks in part to decreasing sequencing and analysis costs. Microbiome health indices and other computational tools currently proposed in the field often are based on a microbiome's species richness and are completely reliant on taxonomic classification. A resurgent interest in a metabolism-centric, ecological approach has led to an increased understanding of microbiome metabolic and phenotypic complexity, revealing substantial restrictions of taxonomy-reliant approaches.Findings In this study, we introduce a new metagenomic health index developed as an answer to recent developments in microbiome definitions, in an effort to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy microbiomes, here in focus, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The novelty of our approach is a shift from a traditional Linnean phylogenetic classification toward a more holistic consideration of the metabolic functional potential underlining ecological interactions between species. Based on well-explored data cohorts, we compare our method and its performance with the most comprehensive indices to date, the taxonomy-based Gut Microbiome Health Index (GMHI), and the high-dimensional principal component analysis (hiPCA) methods, as well as to the standard taxon- and function-based Shannon entropy scoring. After demonstrating better performance on the initially targeted IBD cohorts, in comparison with other methods, we retrain our index on an additional 27 datasets obtained from different clinical conditions and validate our index's ability to distinguish between healthy and disease states using a variety of complementary benchmarking approaches. Finally, we demonstrate its superiority over the GMHI and the hiPCA on a longitudinal COVID-19 cohort and highlight the distinct robustness of our method to sequencing depth.Conclusions Overall, we emphasize the potential of this metagenomic approach and advocate a shift toward functional approaches to better understand and assess microbiome health as well as provide directions for future index enhancements. Our method, q2-predict-dysbiosis (Q2PD), is freely available (https://github.com/Kizielins/q2-predict-dysbiosis)
Viltskadestatistik 2024
Get PDFStaten får i mån av tillgång på medel lämna bidrag för att förebygga skador av vilt och ersätta inträffade skador. Detta regleras i Viltskadeförordningen (2001:724) och Naturvårdsverkets föreskrifter och allmänna råd om bidrag och ersättningar för viltskador (NFS 2008:16/NFS 2018:05) samt i Föreskrifter om bidrag och ersättning för rovdjursförekomst i samebyar (STFS 2007:9).För detta ändamål anslår regeringen årligen medel till Naturvårdsverket att fördela till länsstyrelserna (populärt kallat ”Viltskadeanslaget” eller ”viltskademedel”). I denna rapport redovisas bidrag, skador och ersättningar som länsstyrelserna har registrerat på annat än ren, fisk och fiskeredskap. De senare ersätts enligt annan ordning. För att ersättning ska utgå måste skadorna ha besiktigats av en besiktningsperson som är förordnad av länsstyrelsen. Besiktningspersonerna är utbildade av SLU Viltskadecenter.Länsstyrelsernas kostnader för besiktningar, information och utbildning redovisas i Naturvårdsverkets årsrapport. Av olika skäl kan enskilda länsstyrelser i enstaka fall vara försenade med registreringen vilket leder till att redovisningen blir ofullständig.Bidrag och ersättningar för viltskador utgår i regel endast för vilt som inte får jagas under allmän jakttid (”fredat vilt”; NFS 2018:05), men undantag görs för en del gåsarter i särskilt skadedrabbade områden i närhet till våtmarksreservat. Viltet ifråga utgörs huvudsakligen av stora rovdjur och stora fåglar (gås, trana och sångsvan).Under åren 1997 – 2002 samlades uppgifter in från länsstyrelsernas beslut om bidrag och ersättningar samt från besiktningsprotokoll upprättade vid besiktningar av anmälda skador. Mellan 2003 – 2015 hämtades uppgifter inom samtliga delområden ur databasen Rovdjursforum. Från 2016 och framåt hämtas uppgifter både ur databasen Rovbase och genom särskild rapportering från länsstyrelserna och Jordbruksverket
Intra- and inter-observer reliability of girth measurements of the neck, chest, and abdomen in dogs
Get PDFObjective: This study aimed to assess intra- and inter-observer reliability of neck, chest, and abdominal girth measurements in dogs and to compare these measurements made with a measuring tape, equipped with or without a dynamometer. Methods: The locations of the middle neck, cranial and widest chest, and cranial and caudal abdomen were measured individually by two observers in 16 dogs standing squarely at an examination table. Girth measurements were performed in triplicate with the other observer recording the data. All dogs underwent evaluation using a measuring tape equipped with a spring dynamometer, while a subgroup (n = 8) was also evaluated with a measuring tape without the dynamometer. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs), with a 95% confidence interval (CI), were computed to assess the intra- and inter-observer reliability for the measurements made with the measuring tape equipped with a spring dynamometer. Pearson's correlations (r) were used to compare the two methods: girth measurements performed with and without the dynamometer. Results: Girth measurements at all locations demonstrated high intra-observer (0.967-0.999) and inter-observer (0.985-0.995) reliability. The correlations between measurements made with and without the dynamometer were high (r >= 0.996, p < 0.0001). Numerically higher girth values with numerically lower precision were recorded using the tape measure without the dynamometer, but only the girth of the cranial abdomen differed significantly between methods (p = 0.04). Conclusion and clinical importance: Girth measurements were reliable across all locations, particularly in the cranial chest and caudal abdomen, which exhibited high precision both within and between the two observers. A tape measure loaded with a dynamometer is recommended, as measurements recorded with a tape measure only showed a tendency of higher girth values with lower precision. Future research should evaluate neck, chest, and abdominal girth measurements in overweight canine patients, as well as the usefulness of the method as a complement to clinical body condition assessment for tracking changes in body composition
Semi-Feral Horse Grazing Benefits the Grassland Diversity of Flowering Plants Including a Pollinator-Promoting Indicator Species
Get PDFEuropean grasslands and their biodiversity are declining rapidly due to land use changes, which highlight the need to develop effective restoration strategies. This study investigates the impact of reintroducing the Swedish national horse breed (the Gotland Russ) on grassland plant diversity and evenness in abandoned agricultural landscapes in Southeast Sweden. Twelve horses were introduced into three 10-13-hectare enclosure replicates (four horses per enclosure) in a three-year (2014-2016) rewilding experiment. Plant species richness, evenness, and diversity were investigated in both grazed and un-grazed conditions. The results indicate that horse grazing significantly increased grassland plant species diversity and richness, with higher Shannon and Simpson's diversity indices in grazed areas. In addition, the abundance of white clover (Trifolium repens), a signal species beneficial to pollinators, increased significantly in grazed areas. These findings emphasize the need for integrating large herbivore grazing into ecological restoration practices. Considering the recently enacted EU Nature Restoration Law, which aims to restore 20% of Europe's degraded ecosystems by 2030, this research provides critical insights into scalable restoration methods. The implementation of restoration strategies that include large herbivores may enhance the resilience and biodiversity of European grasslands, thereby aligning with the EU's restoration goals
Insights gained from modeling grain yield, nitrate leaching, and soil nitrogen dynamics in a long-term field experiment with spring cereals on fertilized and unfertilized soil over 35 years
Get PDFCrop models are useful tools for predicting changes in yield and nitrogen losses in response to changes in agricultural management practices and climate. We used a soil-crop model (CoupModel) to interpret trends in yields, drainage, and nitrate leaching observed for two contrasting treatments (fertilized and unfertilized cereals) in a long-term field experiment (35 years) on a sandy loam in southern Sweden. The model was calibrated using a Monte Carlo-based method, in which the 30 best simulations of 10,000 model runs were identified based on multiple criteria. The posterior distributions differed significantly between the two treatments for 6 of the 16 parameters included. For example, the decomposition rate coefficient of the slow organic matter pool was significantly larger in the unfertilized treatment. The model simulated yearly drainage and nitrate leaching well overall, but did not fully capture between-year variations. Although the simulated mean annual nitrate leaching was 1.4 times greater in the fertilized treatment, N leached per unit of N harvest was twice as large in the unfertilized plot. The model simulated substantial decreases in yield for both treatments in 2018 in response to an extremely hot and dry summer, although not as large as that observed. The range in simulated annual N mineralization due to parameter uncertainty was wider in the fertilized treatment. We conclude that model calibration strategies require careful attention to how different management practices may influence decomposition and long-term N balance components in agroecosystems and that more data on especially belowground biomass would help in reducing uncertainties
Stakeholders' perspectives on communicating biosecurity to encourage behavior change in farmers
Get PDFEffective communication is crucial for strengthening collaboration and ensuring the successful implementation of biosecurity measures against infectious diseases. A collaborative approach, where farmers and veterinarians play a central role in decision-making, may have a greater impact on promoting the implementation of biosecurity practices compared to a top-down approach. The objective of this study was to explore the perspectives of researchers, official services, and industry on the preferred communication methods between farmers and various on-farm stakeholders. Data were collected through four simultaneous focus groups conducted within the framework of the COST Action BETTER project: three involving researchers, and one involving official services and industry people. The data were analyzed using content analysis, which generated three main themes and 13 subthemes: (i) effective methods for communicating biosecurity messages to farmers: direct interaction and practical learning, audio-visual media and support materials, importance of personalization and coordination, and challenges and innovative solutions; (ii) designing an optimal communication system to promote behavioral change in biosecurity: initial strategies for communication: knowledge and trust, integration of technological tools, mandatory programs and coordinated campaigns, continuous training and collaborative learning, and incentives and certifications; and (iii) measuring the success of biosecurity communication programs: evaluation tools and audits, key indicators and benchmarking, measuring attitudes and behavioral changes, and participation and knowledge as additional evaluation metrics. The findings highlight the need for collaborative, personalized, and sustainable approaches to biosecurity communication. This study provides valuable insights to inform the development and implementation of communication programs that remain effective over time
Life on the dry side: a roadmap to understanding desiccation tolerance and accelerating translational applications
Get PDFTo thrive in extreme conditions, organisms have evolved a diverse arsenal of adaptations that confer resilience. These species, their traits, and the mechanisms underlying them comprise a valuable resource that can be mined for numerous conceptual insights and applied objectives. One of the most dramatic adaptations to water limitation is desiccation tolerance. Understanding the mechanisms underlying desiccation tolerance has important potential implications for medicine, biotechnology, agriculture, and conservation. However, progress has been hindered by a lack of standardization across sub-disciplines, complicating the integration of data and slowing the translation of basic discoveries into practical applications. Here, we synthesize current knowledge on desiccation tolerance across evolutionary, ecological, physiological, and cellular scales to provide a roadmap for advancing desiccation tolerance research. We also address critical gaps and technical roadblocks, highlighting the need for standardized experimental practices, improved taxonomic sampling, and the development of new tools for studying biology in a dry state. We hope that this perspective can serve as a roadmap to accelerating research breakthroughs and unlocking the potential of desiccation tolerance to address global challenges related to climate change, food security, and health
EthoCRED: a framework to guide reporting and evaluation of the relevance and reliability of behavioural ecotoxicity studies
Get PDFBehavioural analysis has been attracting significant attention as a broad indicator of sub-lethal toxicity and has secured a place as an important subdiscipline in ecotoxicology. Among the most notable characteristics of behavioural research, compared to other established approaches in sub-lethal ecotoxicology (e.g. reproductive and developmental bioassays), are the wide range of study designs being used and the diversity of endpoints considered. At the same time, environmental hazard and risk assessment, which underpins regulatory decisions to protect the environment from potentially harmful chemicals, often recommends that ecotoxicological data be produced following accepted and validated test guidelines. These guidelines typically do not address behavioural changes, meaning that these, often sensitive, effects are not represented in hazard and risk assessments. Here, we propose a new tool, the EthoCRED evaluation method, for assessing the relevance and reliability of behavioural ecotoxicity data, which considers the unique requirements and challenges encountered in this field. This method and accompanying reporting recommendations are designed to serve as an extension of the "Criteria for Reporting and Evaluating Ecotoxicity Data (CRED)" project. As such, EthoCRED can both accommodate the wide array of experimental design approaches seen in behavioural ecotoxicology, and could be readily implemented into regulatory frameworks as deemed appropriate by policy makers of different jurisdictions to allow better integration of knowledge gained from behavioural testing into environmental protection. Furthermore, through our reporting recommendations, we aim to improve the reporting of behavioural studies in the peer-reviewed literature, and thereby increase their usefulness to inform chemical regulation
